Instagram Tests Sharing Your Location With Facebook

Your GPS coordinates would be collected by Instagram, even when you're not using the app, and then shared with Facebook in order to direct more advertising to your profile. Facebook has said it may not release the feature, though.

Instagram has been spotted testing a new privacy setting that would allow it to share your location history with its parent company, Facebook.

According to TechCrunch, your exact GPS coordinates would be collected by Instagram (even when you're not actively using the app) and used by Facebook to target you with adverts. The geo-tagged data would appear to users in the Facebook Activity Log, which records everything you do on the platform, including daily maps of the places you've visited.

A Facebook spokesperson said that "we haven't introduced updates to our location settings. As you know, we often work on ideas that may evolve over time or ultimately not be tested or released. Instagram does not currently store Location History; we'll keep people updated with any changes to our location settings in the future."

The location sharing feature tip off came via Jane Manchun Wong, a Computer Science student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who previously found prototypes of Instagram Video Calling and Music Stickers a few months before being officially launched by Instagram.

The prototype defaults to off, meaning users actively have to choose to share the data with Facebook, but that doesn't mean it will remain that way should the feature launch in the future.

Instagram, as a "Facebook Product", is testing Facebook Location History in their app.

It allows tracking the history of precise locations from your device, now through instagram app too

Facebook's Privacy and Security settings also state that the Location History option "Allows Facebook Products, including Instagram and Messenger, to build and use a history of precise locations received through Location Services on your device" to "explore what's around you, get more relevant ads, and helps improve Facebook."

This news comes after co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company last month in order to "explore our curiosity and creativity again." The implication is that "creativity" is something that could not be explored within Facebook, and it's possible the social media giant's desire to make a profit from the photo sharing app stifled Systrom and Kreiger in some way. Adam Mosseri is the new lead of Instagram, and so will be taking over future endeavours such as Instagram's possible shopping platform.

WhatsApp's CEO Jan Koum also left the company in April, reportedly due to clashing with Facebook over data privacy issues, including whether to weaken WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption. In contrast, Facebook Messenger is not end-to-end encrypted by default, which is how it is able to suggest polls or event information within the messaging client.

Similarly, WhatsApp announced plans to start sharing "some information," such as phone numbers and analytics data, with parent company Facebook. Having all your data on other platforms fed back to Facebook is likely to not sit well with customers, especially in light of the recent hack which left 50 million accounts vulnerable (although Facebook has said that no third-party applications have been affected.)

Facebook was also recently caught using phone numbers provided to it for the purposes of two-factor authentication to direct advertising to users, so it appears that any information provided to Facebook will be fair game for advertisers whether you know it or not.

About the Author

Adam Smith is the Contributing Editor for PCMag UK, and has written about technology for a number of publications including What Hi-Fi?, Stuff, WhatCulture, and MacFormat, reviewing smartphones, speakers, projectors, and all manner of weird tech. Always online, occasionally cromulent, you can follow him on Twitter @adamndsmith.

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